


Seeing What’s Truly Lost

by GypsyDruid



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Post-Episode: s05e14 The Devil Complex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19400254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GypsyDruid/pseuds/GypsyDruid
Summary: Companion piece to “Stayed To Say Goodbye”. Fitz’s thoughts as he sees the consequences of his actions.





	Seeing What’s Truly Lost

He never imagined that it would be this hard. He knew early on that Daisy’s power would probably be needed, but he’d desperately tried to make do without to respect her fears and her wishes. As the fear spectors came more frequently and got more violent, he acknowledged, to himself, that using Daisy was going to be a necessity, but instead of pressing the subject with the Inhuman, he subconsciously began to plan. Even as he thought up the contingencies he’d need to implement, a part of him was screaming about the consequences what he was planning would have, and that had been enough to put a stop to his dark thoughts.

Or so he thought.

Seeing the Doctor had been a brutal blow. Even as horrified as he was to see his doppelganger, he knew why the Doctor had appeared. Leo Fitz would not be able to do what needed to be done without the Doctor’s help. He loved Daisy. She was his sister, his best friend, his closest confidant after Jemma. He would need the Doctor’s callous disregard to do what they both knew needed to be done. He knew that there would be anger and hurt and betrayal, but he would have to accept that to save the world. As they carried out their plan, Fitz girded himself against the hatred and mistrust that he knew his necessary actions would engender but, for some reason, he hadn’t taken into account the fear.

It was evident in how she always put as much space between them as possible whenever they were in the same room and how she always kept him in her field of vision. It was evident in how she never let herself be alone with him, and in the low-level vibrations that no so subtly pushed him away whenever he ventured to close. The one time he startled her, waking her after she’d fallen asleep at one of the tables in the break room, the moment she saw him standing over her, she let out a terrified scream and her power exploded violently outwards in every direction, sending him flying across the room and shattering glass everywhere.

What killed him the most, however, was how she looked at him. It was the same expression that he’d seen on countless Inhumans that the Doctor had experimented on in the Framework. She’d never even looked at him like that after they’d escaped the Framework, despite the fact that he’d ordered and watched her be brutally beaten. When he’d first seen the look, when she’d first come to speak to him after he’d been locked up, he’d lashed out with accusations of things that she’d already been forgiven for, desperate to change that look to something else, anything else.

He also hadn’t taken into consideration how Jemma would be affected by his actions. He hadn’t expected her to understand what he’d had to do to their friend. He certainly hadn’t expected her to accept it the way she had or for her and Yo-yo to break him out of containment. He suspected that part of her newfound belief in their inevitable survival, was the hope of somehow making amends to Daisy, but he never called her on it. He knew what he’d done was unforgivable, and he couldn’t bring himself to extinguish that new light he saw in her eyes.

After rescuing them from Ruby and Von Strucker, Daisy had taken to avoiding Jemma and Elena as well. For them, it was mostly anger and betrayal, but he knew that a large part of that betrayal was the fact that they’d broken him out. He remembered the look in Daisy’s eyes when Elena had said that they hadn’t chosen her. He knew that those words had to have flared up old insecurities in the unadopted orphan, and although he wanted to comfort her, he knew that he no longer had that right.

It was tolerable at first. Relationships were strained, but they had the world-ending issues of Talbot and the Kree to deal with. He supposed it meant something that, according to Jemma, Daisy was just as worried as everyone during his multiple surgeries after the rocks nearly crushed him. For Jemma, it was hope that the things were getting better. It was after those situations were resolved that the true extent of the damage truly became clear. Daisy threw herself into finding one last miracle to save Coulson, avoid interacting with any of them unless absolutely necessary. Mack only spoke to them on a professional basis, even giving Elena the cold shoulder. Cold disapproval fairly radiated from May. The only relief was when Daisy managed to pull one last trick. One of her contacts had stumbled on an Inhuman with the ability to heal working with Doctor’s Without Borders. Daisy had wasted no time hopping into a quinjet to go beg for his help. It had taken the Director weeks of recovery, even with the healing, yet as he watched Daisy settle in to wait, he could sense a restlessness in her that left him uneasy. He had a feeling that she was about to leave again and although he knew that he didn’t deserve it, he wondered if she would say goodbye this time.

He had saved the world but, in the process, he had destroyed his team, shattered his family.

And for all of his genius, he had no idea how to fix it.


End file.
